Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 2 Entries. Wednesday, August 13 View Page Ok so I should have started this diary months ago. I'm a new grower from the UK and this is my first season growing giants. I was lucky to be given seeds from AXC and although I'm over a month behind others I'm making ok progress. I have two plants from a Payton 963 and a Raymont 936. The 936 has been the steadiest plant and has grown really well and uniform. I've finally chosen the single fruit about 12' on the main and this has been on 20 days since pollonation. I don't know the size but its about a football. The 963 has been troublesome. It kept wanting to grown in a corkscrew that has caused the vine to crack at about 6'. Its all healed but it could be a weakness. This plant is huge and just keeps sprawling with huge side vines. Sadly an escaped cow (yes really) trampled the main vine at about 12 feet meaning I had to terminate prematurely and just before an ideal fruit. I'm now undecided which side should grow the main fruit and I have three candidates I'm evaluating and will choose one this week. Anyway this diary is a big thanks to Mark who got me started with the seeds. I can't believe how much hard work keeping ahead of these plants has been digging the earth and providing water. Its great fun though and has really sparked so much interest among my allotment neighbours! Fingers crossed for some sunny weather finally to help these plants along. Hopefully I'll be adding more diary entries including pictures in the next few days and weeks. Monday, September 8 View Page The plants are both steadily growing but I think both are having problems and need a lot more care than I can give. The Raymont seems to have stalled completely and its quite small. It also got nibbled by a mouse or possibly slugs? The plant looks healthy though. The Payton is doing much better. I didn't record the pollonation date but I think it was around 26th July. The measurements I took are therefore: 22 days 32" circ 36 days 77lb OTT 41 days 89lb OTT Its going steady but by no means heavyweight. Still its by far the biggest pumpkin I've evry grown and as such I'm very pleased. I'm quite concerned the plant is dying though as its turned really yellow and a lot of the leaves off the main vine have died. Its quite "skeleton" like. I haven't been able to feed with anything other than blood fish and bone sprinkled on the surface. I hope this hasn't had a negative effect? The weather has been totally rubbish. Very wet almost continuosly and in the last few days a bit chilly too.